Muslim Money Talk
Introducing the Muslim Money Talk Podcast, a place for all things Muslim and Money related.
Every week we'll be sitting down with Founders, leaders and industry experts from across multiple disciplines to discuss lessons learned, mistakes made and most importantly 'How they did it?'.
Brought to you by Kestrl: The Muslim Money App, software to help Muslims grow their wealth without compromise. Find out more here: https://kestrl.io/
Muslim Money Talk
Muslim Money Talk Best of 2024! Compilation Episode - Muslim Money Talk Ep 28
A 2024 round up! Alhamdullilah after 27 episodes we've have some incredible moments, from discussions on all things Muslim and Money related. Whether it was debating Islamic Finance, getting Personal finance tips, career advice or learning how to start a business there were some fantastic moments from the last 6 months.
Here are just a few...
Show Notes:
00:00 - Introduction
01:54 - Islamic Finance solving WORLD HUNGER?
02:57 - The Power of a Mother's Prayer
06:16 - My Wife Dared Me to Launch An Airline
10:13 - How Islamic is Islamic Finance?
15:37 - Can Women Have a Successful Career AND Family?
20:26 - Building Wealth that Lasts 1,400 years
26:26 - Banking is a Legalised Fraud!
31:02 - If Interest Is Everywhere- Is It All Hopeless?
35:58 - How Apartheid South Africa SHAPED Ideas About Money
39:02 - Dealing with Racism Growing Up In the UK
43:31 - Interest vs. Profit - What's the Difference?
49:41 - UK Schooling is BROKEN
53:42 - How Many Female Imam's Are There?
57:23 - Racism is a part of British Society
1:00:48 - Backlash from Boycotting CocaCola
1:05:01 - Finding Your Calling As A Founder
1:07:53 - How Can Muslims Unlock Their Potential?.
1:11:03 - The Story Behind Kestrl's Name
Are the Islamic finance products we have halal in and of themselves and every time, in every place. They said no because of the context and the situation when we've allowed them.
Speaker 2:They said no.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think aviation has turned me into a man Really.
Speaker 2:Can women have it all then?
Speaker 4:You can have it all, but at different times.
Speaker 5:Yeah, and I said Tony Blair. And you can imagine you can imagine the level of bullying. Oh my god that I got from that day onward.
Speaker 7:It's. What frustrates me most is how anyone, as I'm raising the seed round, can see this behavior and the political rhetoric across Europe and then say to my face, we don't see the need for something like Bloom we don't see the need for something like Bloom.
Speaker 2:Assalamu alaikum and welcome to this compilation of the very best moments of Muslim Money Talk from 2024. Whether it was learning how to start a business or getting lessons on how to upgrade your personal finance, debating with industry experts about the nuances of Islamic finance, or just getting career advice, we had some amazing conversations. Now, before we dive in, I just wanted to say a massive thank you. Thank you to all of you for tuning in every week, giving your feedback and letting us know what you wanted to hear. Next. We have an incredible lineup in 2025, with new guests and some live conversations, not just here in the UK, but around the world.
Speaker 2:I cannot wait to show you what this year has in store Now, without further ado. I've always been your host, aruv Siddiqui, except that one time it was my brother, and this is Muscle Money Talk. Before we begin, we noticed that only about 12% of you are actually subscribed, so if you like what you're listening to, then please consider subscribing. Leave us a like or, even better, a review, because it really really does help more people find us. Thank you.
Speaker 8:Now back to the show I also want to add is that islamic finance is not limited to our mortgages. Haram ribas, haram yeah islamic finance, by the way, or let's call it money. The concept of islamic finance is very novel. It probably doesn't exist in terms of like. We've given it a name right, but the teachings that we have if applied university would solve a lot of world's problems I think there's a. There's a stat that always goes around. If um zakat was a was applied globally, it would end world poverty absolutely so if everyone in the world paid zakat, it would earn world poverty.
Speaker 8:There were times before where societies existed where zakat was so efficient that there was no one left to pay zakat to in certain caliphates. So there's concepts that exist that, if they were applied universally, would solve a lot of problems, and we need to have like firm belief in these teachings. Because we know we believe in them firmly, we should be firm in our belief in in them as well. And and, for example, whilst there are loads of challenges, there's amazing opportunities as well. So we aren't prevented in islam, we're not discouraged from being wealthy I'll give you a story.
Speaker 6:Actually, there was a time in our setup when we'd had a particularly tough conversation with the regulator, back in the early days, when we're still figuring out whether we even need to be regulated Really tough conversation. And I remember going home with tears in my eyes and I remember laying my head down in my mother's lap, sobbing in her lap and saying mum, it's over, it can't be done, this is the end of the journey. All of this hard work is over. And I remember my mum stroking my hair with my head in her lap and saying you know, raza, you're wrong. You're doing this for Allah and He'll find a way for you and Allah forgive me. I remember at that point saying no, mum, you don't understand, you're wrong. It's not just about making dua, it just can't be done. And subhanAllah, I kid you, not the very next day it. And subhanAllah, I kid you, not the very next day. It's hard to describe this, but it's like I could see Allah's hand just removing this boulder from the way like it never existed. Literally the very next day, me and Sheikh Salman got on a call together saying what we thought was the biggest obstacle has turned into the biggest opportunity, which we couldn't have even imagined, and I 100% believe that's because of the intention we had. Exactly what my mum said Mum's to us. You know you're doing it for a little it will help you.
Speaker 6:The biggest risk each of us founders has is losing sight of that, losing sight of why we're doing it, forgetting that hudge journey that we had. That's why I like telling that story. Pretty much every podcast I've been on I've told that story. I love telling it to remind myself why I'm doing what I'm doing.
Speaker 6:I think what makes me and you good founders is because we're not doing this because we spotted a business opportunity. We're doing this because we felt a real moral compunction, a real sense of responsibility to do this, because we have the skill sets to do it. It's what's called a fard ke faya. If you have the ability to do something that is very important for the ummah and nobody else is doing it, it's fard upon you to do it. So I feel we're doing this out of a sense of responsibility and obligation and the biggest risk to any of us Islamic fintechs is forgetting that and losing that sincerity, because that's when Allah will stop helping us. I have absolute certainty of that. So, as long as we can all stick true to that, do it for the right reasons, I think we've got nothing to worry about. Inshallah.
Speaker 3:I think aviation has turned me into a man, really Like from a business perspective. I knew nothing about fundraising, share options, this, that. How do you work out valuation, premoney, valuation, post-money value? These were all like, like scientific terms to me and I used to ask the cfo person. I was like what does this mean, or how do you get to that, or how does it? I was having a course, I was learning it was your education, yeah, literally.
Speaker 3:And, bro, like this, it really did turn me into a man, I would say. And, by the way, that idea, it was my wife that dared me Really. It was my wife that dared me once, because, I don't know, I used to, just before we got married. I would tell her look, I'm going to launch an airline one day and, I don't know, for some reason, she believed in it as well. I'm going to launch an airline one day and, I don't know, for some reason, she believed in it as well. I'm like, why would she? People shouldn't believe you, but she did. And then she goes to me one night and goes you know what? I'll call you a man if you do it. I'm like bro, my manhood is at question. Now how can I say Please?
Speaker 2:tell me that wasn't the main reason that you it triggered me.
Speaker 3:Honestly, please tell me that wasn't the main reason that you it triggered me. Honestly. Look, I knew I was going to do it. I knew I wanted to do it, but I didn't know it was going to be at that time. Wow For me. It was probably going to be another six to ten years later, but still. But I said you know what challenge accepted.
Speaker 2:Because there's this moment in the documentary where your wife and daughter had gone out to Bangladesh, and at this point the dream was really almost dead. Yeah. Right, the airport that you were going to fly to had pulled out. Was it Wakefield? It was.
Speaker 3:Waterford. Waterford and they were so annoyed because I called them Watford.
Speaker 2:Irish people did not appreciate that Waterford Airport pulled out from the deal for whatever reason they did, and you flew out to Bangladesh and you hadn't told your family what was going on and you sat around this fire with your wife.
Speaker 3:Abid. Abid was there. Abid was there, and your daughter.
Speaker 2:And you break the news to them.
Speaker 3:What was their reaction? They were devastated. I mean, I don't know about abid. I think he he's more calculated than than I am, so he probably like knew it could go either way. It could either happen or it could go south. But obviously me and my wife we were like there's only way, there's only one way it's going to happen is, and it's by happening it's going to launch. So for her it was very, very difficult news and she was like oh, why didn't you tell me, and it's okay, it's okay to start, it's okay to start very small.
Speaker 3:And now that I look back, you know what, maybe I should have just started opening a cleaning company in aviation and slowly, slowly work my way up, just like with Sunamas, you in aviation, and slowly, slowly work my way up, just like with Sunnah Masjid. You know how we done. But I went like all in and I went right into the deep end and I guess everything bro happened. I believe everything happens for a reason. Every, whatever we do, every action that we take is by the permission of Allah, and I think that's what was supposed to happen in my chapter of my life journey and I was supposed to be maybe trained or taught that way, some of the life lessons and, honestly, it really knocked me, it finished me, it crippled me.
Speaker 3:When everything came crashing down after the first lockdown, I was going through depression, I was going through anxiety, I was going to anxiety. You got people calling you. You got lenders that have loaned money to me as a person, not as a business, because they wouldn't lend it to the business because it's too risky. So they looked at me and they gave it to me. So now these people are calling me for their money. I'm like, what am I supposed to say?
Speaker 1:like I don't have it and I just want to say this on record, right? Yeah, every single islamic finance scholar I've spoken to globally, every single one, without a shadow of a doubt. And I've spoken to and I've asked them the question do you think islamic finance and its current guise is acceptable in every time and every place? Right as it is in and of itself. Right, so like, for example, the water that you have, that's always going to be halal. There's no issues of it being halal. Right? All the Islamic finance products we have halal in and of themselves and every time and every place. They said no Because of the context and the situation when we've allowed them.
Speaker 1:They said no yeah, because of the context and the situation that we're in, we allow them, so they are halal. We're not saying they're not halal.
Speaker 2:But it's not for every time. It's contextual.
Speaker 1:Yes, and in and of themselves they aren't permissible. Every, every single one that I've spoken to. So, okay, that's fine, but say that if, if I went to you and said to you this chicken's halal and you're like, okay, cool, and you eat it, but actually it was, you know, the head was cut off with a laser or something right, the shahada wasn't said you'd be like, wait a second, that wasn't what you understood of it. If I said to you look, we can't.
Speaker 1:For this reason and for example, you see the discussion between HFA and HMC, like any time they meet debate, right, people have the right to know if something has been compromised, rather than being sold to them that this is absolutely Sharia compliant. And this comes back to my earlier point, why I never islamic finance working in the industry like that was because if I did something wrong, I wanted those doors of mercy to be left open where I'd ask allah to forgive me, knowing that it's wrong, whereas if it's justified to me, I will never raise my hands to ask allah to forgive me because I think it's okay. And that's why I was like, okay, I'd rather not work where we're justifying something. I like the idea of disruption and moving things towards where it should be. Why?
Speaker 2:do you think this happened right? So these Islamic banks came up, and I think the founders of these Islamic banks understood that this was meant to be a stopgap solution. Right, they were doing the best that they could within a financial system that was not created for Sharia compliance. But then they always wanted it to move on and innovate. Why did the innovation stop? Because I guess we had a global financial crisis. Hsbc pulled out of the market for a number of reasons. So look the financial crisis.
Speaker 1:Yeah, here's one thing I would say is that when the financial crisis happened back in 2007, 2008,. That was the prime opportunity for the world to see the benefits of Islamic finance, but they never spoke about Islamic finance as an alternative to the global financial crisis, because they actually didn't believe. I'm talking about the financial world generally, as Islamic finance has been that different because of the way it's practiced. Instead, bitcoin right was cited as okay. This is an alternative. Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, and that's because Islamic finance in practice and implementation, it didn't fulfill that role. And it's a shame, actually, because I speak to a number of non-Muslims and they'll say, oh, you know people who understand Islamic finance. They say it's exactly the same. But you know where it says interest, they change it for profit. Then I speak to people who work in the technology side. They say we use exactly the same systems in the back for everything. But even then, look, it's easy to kind of go down this.
Speaker 1:The early generation, the pioneers ofic finance, were trying to do something good. But the problem is you're entering into arena right where you're a you know, just imagine a match in a hurricane, a lit match in a hurricane. Islamic finance is very, very small compared to the conventional financial industry and you've got to really be working together with everyone, have a clear vision in terms of okay, this is our plan to move away from where we are. You know life, bro. Honestly, you're successful in what you're doing, you're in it. Other people are entering into Islamic finance because it's successful. They don't all have the same values as you and the same principles as you, so it's easy to kind of lose track if it's making money and people don't ask too many questions, and that's why disruption is important. Like, if you look at it, ramadan comes to us as a month of disruption for sure right to to change things up.
Speaker 1:We need disruption in our lives and and so the islamic finance like what you guys are doing, like Mashallah with Kestrel that disruption what Waheed came along to do was to disrupt actually because you need that and that actually is. It shakes things up, it makes you re-evaluate and also, I do believe, respectfully speaking, we now have a set of people who've come through the entire system. They understand the education system here, the financial system here. They've worked for 10, 15, 20 years. They've worked in large corporates. They understand who their peers are, who they're dealing with in a different way, so they're not going to accept things in the same way that perhaps the early generation would have, and all of these things you throw in the mix. So, respect to the early pioneers and I think that the ship kind of it.
Speaker 4:Just they stopped staring it and that was part of the problem but that's one of the reasons I feel like we sometimes don't see that many muslim women, vc backed founders is because of this life the, et cetera.
Speaker 2:So can women have it all then?
Speaker 4:You can have it all, but at different times.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what does that mean?
Speaker 4:It basically means, you know, there'll be times where you have to take a break in your career. There has to be a time when you take it slow. You know, right now I'm in the phase of having a young kid, growing my family, all of that stuff. You know, who knows, 10 years from now, whatever I might be like, all right, cool, I'm ready to grow a really massive company. No, I don't want to, I just want to chill. But but do you feel?
Speaker 9:sorry, this is getting more personal than we usually get in these podcasts, but do you feel like attention?
Speaker 2:do you feel attention between your career ambitions and wanting to go like, oh, we're going to go 110 on Muslim tech fest. We're going to do it in San Francisco and Boston and Chicago and London and Manchester and Birmingham. We're going to go, you know, every other week doing something. And then the other side of you, which is, you know, I want to be there for my husband and daughter and see them growing up, is, do you feel like that push and pull or do you feel like, okay, now is the time I want to stay on, spend on family're going to be doing this and then I'll look at the ambition.
Speaker 4:I think there is a tension, but this is where your co-founder plays a massive part, right, like what bits can they do, et cetera. And you know there's been frank conversations that I've had about, you know, if I was to grow my family, what does that look like and what does that mean for the business, and how do we make sure we have the right things in place, right, so that if I needed to take that time out, I would be able to, and I think that's really important. But at the same time, like you, can still have the ambition. But then you've got to then also think about how you're going to build something sustainably, and I think that's really, really important. So it is hard because it is.
Speaker 4:You know, it's not one of them things I remember, man, oh, I remember this well actually, when I had the early newborn, etc. I felt like muslimic makers started to fall behind and I felt like a lot of other communities etc. Came more into foray and mashallah. They're all doing very, very well like dean developers I guess all, lots of, lots of other communities right.
Speaker 4:And I remember, as a mom with a newborn, as a leader, being like, oh, like I'm falling really behind yeah and that was very hard, very hard because I was competing against not competing. But you know, we were all in a similar space, but they were all male men, men men that didn't have the same amount of responsibilities as I did, that weren't looking after little newborns you know what?
Speaker 2:I mean, to an extent, muslim makers was your first baby yeah well, second I've discovered the first. Yeah, I get that because that was hard.
Speaker 4:I think that for me was the really hard point, because I just felt like I couldn't compete on the same level as as men, and that for me, I think, is something that I do recognize that can get really hard when you are trying to then balance like life and stuff but the thing that you said, having that supportive partner I think it's okay.
Speaker 2:I mean, as a man it's to a lesser extent, but when my first child was born, when my son was born two years ago, I remember sitting in the hospital holding him in one hand. My wife had given birth like four hours before and I was reviewing a term sheet on my phone to sign this thing, and then we went and started on this accelerator and I didn't take any paternity leave yeah and I just felt like I needed to be this almost superhuman like to my team and to shareholders and say, nah, it's fine, right, like my wife gave birth and I'm going to work the same same day.
Speaker 2:But I really at the time didn't appreciate the impact that would have at home that.
Speaker 4:I wasn't there for all of those things and you know my wife was struggling with that newborn and I thought, no, it's fine, like all my family's there, it's okay, but showing up matters showing up but also, if your wife was you, she wouldn't be able to do that, she wouldn't be able to have a kid and, and, and you know, be back in the office the next day you know, so. So again right, like biologically, like it's just not, it's a reality, it's the reality thank you for listening to muslim money talk.
Speaker 2:If you like what you've heard so far, you might be interested in checking out what we do at kestrel, the muslim money app. Kestrel is a service that helps muslims who want to grow their wealth without having to compromise, whether it's on their belief or user experience or price. I founded kestrel because of how fed up I was at how poor Islamic financial services were in this country. Often people didn't use them because of how bad the user experience or customer service and indeed, how high in price they were. So Kestrel was the answer to that. If you download the Kestrel app today, it can help you by creating a budgeting plan. Plug in whatever bank account you have and it will create an auto-budget just for you. You can then tell us what goals you're saving for, and we'll save towards them automatically into pots and then, crucially, link you towards Sharia-compliant investment and savings products as well. So download Kestrel today and try it out for yourself. Now back to the podcast.
Speaker 2:Muslims in this country and in many parts of the world make up some of the most impoverished religious communities that there are. So in the UK, almost 50% of Muslims actually live below the poverty line, struggling to pay at least one of their bills, or even taking advantage of food banks, which is crazy. But despite that, muslims are by far the most generous and donate the most to charity out of any religious group right, whether it's through their zagat or their sadhka donations every friday at jumma, whatever it might be, they pay far and above all the other religious groups combined right. So what is going on? And if we look back at the time, at the time of the sahaba, when they were forced to go from maghreb to medina, there's two very interesting things. The first is when the muslims first arrived in medina, the prophet muhammad salallahu alaihi, wasalam the first thing he asked them to build was what?
Speaker 2:firstly, a mosque, a masjid, correct, a place to pray, which seems, you know you, you wouldn't immediately think, oh, that's weird. Yeah, what was the second thing? It?
Speaker 10:was a market.
Speaker 2:A marketplace, yeah, a marketplace. So even then, it was understood to this group of travelers, who had left everything behind and come with just what they could carry to this new city, that they had to be financially independent, that they had to be financially independent. They had to be independent, and the way to do that was through building wealth again.
Speaker 2:And through that came power and privilege and a standing in society.
Speaker 2:So that was really interesting to me.
Speaker 2:The second is the story about Uthman Radhi Allaha and the well, and this is this idea that investment, investing can actually last, not just for you, for your, your children, but for a millennia, and this story really like shook me to my core.
Speaker 2:So at the time, the, the muccans, the muslims who had come from mokka, were used to fresh water from the famous well of zamzam. And when they came to medina, the best well and the best water supply was in the control of a non-muslim, a jewish man, who would charge people for the smallest handful of water. And it became such a serious situation that the prophet muhammad, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, actually approached the man and said we, I can't buy the well from you, but if you grant us access to the well, I can promise you a place in paradise. Now, obviously this didn't work with the guy, but Uthman Radila and her heard about this and realized he needed to do something about it. And he is, by today's standards people have calculated would likely have been close to, or perhaps even a billionaire if you were to convert his wealth to net wealth.
Speaker 2:So he approached the man and began the negotiation and in the end he managed to purchase 50% of the well a 50% ownership stake in the well for the sum of 20,000 dirhams, which was a huge amount at the time, a huge fortune. And the agreement was that he would own the well for the sum of 20,000 dirhams, which was a huge amount at the time, a huge fortune. And the agreement was that he would own the well on one day and on the other day the original owner, the Jewish man, would own the well and they would run the wells as they like on each day.
Speaker 2:So on the day that the Jewish owner ran it, he would charge people every day. But on the day that Uthman Radhi Lah ran it, what do you think he did? Give it for free. He just gave it for free for everyone. So everyone came on that day and they would take as much water as they needed and then they would never come on the day that they had to pay for it. So this was um. You know, I think this speaks to the negotiating power and the business and commercial mindset of the early muslims. But it ended up with the other owner ended up selling the rest of the early Muslims. But it ended up with the other owner ended up selling the rest of the well over to the Muslims, over to Uthman Radhi Laha.
Speaker 10:It was no longer profitable to him.
Speaker 2:It wasn't profitable for him to keep it, but he made his money when he sold the rest of it. So the other Muslims began to make their own money. And then they came to Uthman, radhi Laha, and they said thank you so much for what you did, we. And they said thank you so much for what you did, we want to buy this back from you. And he would refuse. And they eventually ended up offering twice what he ended up paying for the well. And he said no. And what he asked for was? They said well then, who could offer a higher price than this? And he said Allah. And that was it.
Speaker 2:And it's a beautiful story, because the well continued right. The Muslims eventually went back to Makkah, but the well remained. The waters were used to feed the date palms that grew around it. The dates were sold, 50% of the wealth was actually used, went to charity, 50% was invested, reinvested back into the project, and then years passed. The years became decades, centuries, until whole empires, muslim empires, whoever was in control of the area, would look after the well.
Speaker 2:And this well and its wealth exists to this day, and the money from that is stored in a bank account which is ascribed to Uthman and that money, that investment, is actually used to finance a lot of the building work that happens around Makkah, which allows the people to go on pilgrimage and live there and keep moving. And what's insane is that the money that's generated annually is estimated to be the equivalent of about 50 million USD a year, which makes it not only the oldest but arguably the most profitable asset and investment of all time. So, subhanallah, I think it really speaks to the power of financial literacy.
Speaker 2:It's Uthman, radhi, alla and Hur certainly use his wealth and his privilege to not just benefit himself and his Akhara, his afterlife, but to benefit all of society. And I think it really speaks to us right. We have privileges, we have unfair advantages, we have skills and talents. We should be using those things to follow in the footsteps of the giants who came before us, to take control of our finances, invest in our future and, ultimately, for our akhiras.
Speaker 12:Especially, as scholars know. They know that we are building Islamic finance off the back of a conventional system, and the conventional system is one where money is created from nothing. So, as you know, fiat money, which is money that is decreed to be sold by a government that's the US dollar, that's the euro, that's the pound, that's the yen, and so on Fiat money is created by governments and private sector banks in the act of credit creation. Every time a bank lends you money, it creates new money in the process. People seem to think that the money that you deposit in your bank is then used to lend to other people. That's not how banking works. Banking is called fractional reserve banking. Why? Because the deposit that goes into the bank from depositors is just a reserve. Actually, the bank is allowed to lend multiples of the money that it holds in reserves. Where's that money come from? It's literally created from nothing. It's digits in a computer. So if they held a hundred as a deposit, they might be lending a thousand. 900 new pounds were created.
Speaker 2:Which is why it's a house of cards which quite often topples with all these financial crises.
Speaker 12:It's actually a legalized fraud if you think about it. If you had a Martian land on planet earth and they looked at this, they would say oh wow, you guys are perpetrating a fraud on everybody. You're just creating money from nothing.
Speaker 2:I'd push back a little bit on, not on that point, but on the idea that Islamic finance today doesn't have a purpose, Because you know far, far better than I why it was done this way. It was so that we could move in the right direction. Muslims had nothing. That we could move in the right direction. Muslims had nothing. Then the forefathers of Islamic finance, people like Iqbal Khan and others, came on and they had to do something to move and create something that was, I suppose, more Sharia compliant than there had been before and to get around the regulations and the licensing and everything there. They had to do something that still fit into that framework. It wasn't perfect, but it wasn't meant to be the final step. Do you think we've lost sight of moving forward and we've just dropped the ball, left things where they were?
Speaker 12:So I agree that that was the intention back then, but I also agree we've lost purpose, we have lost sight, we haven't kept our eyes on the prize and now we're entrenched and happy and comfortable reverse engineering conventional debt and calling it Sharia compliant because we've overlaid a halal contract on top like an Ijara, a lease right, but fundamentally, underneath we still have fractional reserve banking. I have the utmost respect for people like Iqbal Khan and the originators of our industry. Remember that back in the 1980s, scholars allowed the commodity murabaha as a proxy for loan finance on an interim basis only. They said you can use this for now, but we need you to move across to a better, purer form of financing which is risk sharing form of financing which is risk sharing. So, for example, if you and I entered into a modaraba arrangement, an investment management arrangement, where I give you capital, you take that capital and you trade it somewhere and we agree to split the profits at the end of that venture, that's halal right, that's a pure trade activity between us. But that's not what banks do. We have a borrower-lender relationship, an asymmetric relationship, where one is the master and the other is the servant, and we were always meant to move away from that credit arrangement. That's what the scholars said. But we didn't do it as an industry. Why? Because we got all our approvals on the basis of commodity marabaha. So you know, in an investment bank you've got an army of people, You've got compliance and legal and salespeople and credit traders and derivative structurers, and everybody in the chain has agreed that we're kind of comfortable with this commodity in Marabaha because it looks like a loan, it quacks like a loan. We're going to carry on using this thing. We'll never really innovate beyond that.
Speaker 12:When Deutsche Bank came on the scene in the early 2000s, they completely shook up that market because they said, ah, no, no, no, we don't need to do this. And we sincerely wanted to do the right thing. We wanted to create Mosharaka Modaraba Wakala contracts, real risk-sharing arrangements like the PCFC Sukuk, which eventually had a purchase undertaking added to it, which was this buyback at the par value, which of course renders it like a normal bond. That's not what we wanted originally. So we had good intentions, but along the way people get entrenched and they don't want to change and they make good money out of what they're doing. It's all about economic incentive and the incentive is not there for people to change.
Speaker 2:I think this is where a lot of listeners feel hopelessness, because we've just described a system which it's covering the entire world. Right, whole countries are enslaved to this. So, and and it relates to that hadith where I think you know prophet muhammad said that one day there will not be a person on this planet who is not touched by river.
Speaker 13:Yep.
Speaker 2:The dust of the river. Arguably we are living in that time, right now that hadith has come to pass. How on earth do we intend to do anything about this?
Speaker 13:That's a great question. I love that question. The reason why I love that question is because on a recent trip to the Middle East I was in Dubai and I've now met a handful of people that used to. They're retired. They have formerly worked in Bahrainis, uae, worked in central banks, and when I speak to them that oh, by the way, I run an organization, rff, it's about Riba they get really interested in what you're doing education, et cetera, et cetera. We want to change, reform the financial system. Their response is it can't be done. Yeah.
Speaker 13:Right, that's the first problem. I want to highlight something a lot of people do not understand Right, the end result is never in our hands. And I want to come back to the Battle of Badr for people who don't know who that is, so if people don't know what that battle is, that was the first battle that took place in Islam. Right, right, these, these are 313 people. Right, with very little resource in arsenal, fought an army of 1000 that had a horse, a camel, and all the armory and the weaponry went to war. Now, logically, most people say that you know the army with the bigger weapons would win, and you can see that in you know plays out via countries, in terms of what's happening today. 313 Muslims won that battle.
Speaker 13:It's all about mindset. It comes down to mindset, and what we're trying to reshape is, via the education, to recalibrate people's mindsets. Because we go to school, we think there's only one way to success Go to school, get good grades, go to university, take an interest-bearing loan if you can't afford it and then go into a job. Right, but the first pioneers of Islam were all trade people, entrepreneurs. Money is another misconception. Money is a tool for economic empowerment. It's not the root of all evil. You have to make a decision. Ultimately, when you die, you have to justify the use of that money to Allah. What you did with it? Right? It's an amanah, right? It doesn't belong to us. It's Allah's. It's been granted to us for a short space of time and he's testing us with it, right? Everything's a test for a Muslim. He wants to see what you're going to do with it. Do you see what I mean?
Speaker 13:So, if you look at the Sahaba and the 313 in Badr, whether they, what they were willing to do was sacrifice their wealth and their lives for the cause, because they knew, when we go into that battle, if we all lose the messiah of islam, which is this is in allah's hands, how's it going to get through to other people? Do you see what I mean? But there's a special ingredient that they had. The fact that they were so sincere that they were willing to sacrifice everything for the sake of allah is the reason they've had success, and victory only comes by the hand of Allah. This is written, enshrined in the Quran. Do you see what I mean?
Speaker 13:So, whether it's economics or Islamic finance, right? What we can't afford to have is this defeatist mentality, saying it cannot be done. We're not saying that we're going to reform the economic structure and destroy riba. Yes, that's our purpose. Whether it happens not is in the hands of Allah, but what we have to do, what we must do, is come up with a strategy and a plan and Like-minded people that understand this and move forward collectively, together. Do you see what I mean? Because that's what the sahaba did.
Speaker 13:So there's so many, apart from just the victory of, but there's so many principles to take from that. And the other thing really, really important, especially for youngsters young entrepreneurs are coming up. I see them so many times and they, they want to have everything handed on a silver platter. Right, there's success in sacrifice. There is success. Let me say that again, there's success in sacrifice.
Speaker 13:The people of badr, they sacrificed and suffered. Yes, the muslim umma is suffering right now, and I sometimes reflect about this. Right, why is it? We were actually foretold about these things 1400 years ago. Right, the dust of riba will affect us. Um, you know all these signs of qiyamah, all these things that would happen, and it kind of alluded to the fact that the muslim ummah would lose its respect, and right now, we've lost our respect, whether people like to admit it or not. However. However, there's a really, really key principle here. Whether it's in time of prosperity or hardship, our principles do not change. That's the key part. It's all good and well when everyone's flying high and there's economic prosperity. What people can't seem to figure out is that, whether they're good times or bad times, your DNA as a believer shouldn't change.
Speaker 14:Money will come, money will also go. When my parents, I mean I grew up in apartheid, south Africa, right, I mean a generation ago, right, apartheid was really one of the most blighted things on this planet. Right, racial segregation, economic segregation, was really really difficult, started, I mean, probably during the colonization era, right, and then rolled through the 1900s in South Africa. But my parents grew up in that environment. My mom, right, she was quite a bright student, right, we're talking about 67, lots of unheaval, a lot of sanctions in South Africa, right, Separ. But my mom was very smart, right, so she had ambitions of, like, being going professional, doing other things, but in a matricula, right, which is your final grade before you go into university, right, um, my grandfather lost his job, and, and he lost his job. He was highly educated, right, but he was working in a plastic factory shop, a plastic factory, manufacturing factory. Lost his job, right, and he lost it due to automation. Oh, really. So when people talk to me about artificial intelligence or robotics or digitalization, right, I think you know about the social consequences. Right, I think about how we're training our employees, right, to adapt to this world, right, how are we prepping the ground for these technologies that are coming. How would you make them more resilient, right? How would you give them the skills that they'll be successful in whatever they do?
Speaker 14:That time there was no social securities net, there was no retrenchment funds, there was no pension funds. There was no pension funds. There was no job protection, nothing. So my grandfather lost his job. He lost his job. He became a paper delivery boy, right, as they call it in that area. Obviously, my grandmother was at that time. That era globally right. Females were not working. It was very humbling for a really educated person. But the downstream impact of that was my mom got two scholarships right, one to study medicine, one to study French at the Sorbonne. But she couldn't take up those opportunities because there's no money, there's no social savings security, no investments, nothing to protect you. Right, government was not interested in you. So she went into teaching because teaching is something she could do and earn money at the same time. And she had a great career right as a teacher, taught thousands of students. They still come up to her. You know when down in South Africa they'll come. Oh, mrs Basa, thank you so much, but I think of the lost opportunity. Yeah.
Speaker 14:Then I think about the rest of the people that were in that situation. Then I think about how that situation still permeates now globally, right in many different regions of the world. And that's why I think financial service has this. It has the capacity, it has the capability to really transform people's lives. So that's how I got into financial services, right? Wow, really, if you think about that, that was my whole thing like how can I really enable this right.
Speaker 15:The other person that also really changed me was this is again like I don't know if I should say this but um, I, uh, I I listened to a music video. Uh, a music video, or um, I watched a music video, yeah, and it was an artist called loki.
Speaker 15:I don't know if you know loki, I've heard the name yeah, so he's like a, he's like a rapper, but he's quite like about social consciousness and stuff like that. And he released a video called terrorist um and one of the first uh lines on that was um, your dad's favorite food is curry and I can't remember your dad's scared of the ragheads, pakis and ragheads, but your dad's favorite food is curry and kebab, Something like that right. But that really had a big impact on me, because what it made me realize is like people love our culture, yeah, but they also love to hate us.
Speaker 2:It's so relevant today Exactly as well. I tune into LBC every now and then it's always just such a such a roller coaster. Yeah, people calling in and they're like. I remember james o'brien. This clip went viral with someone calling into james o'brien and, um, or james o'brien retelling the story of someone calling in and he was talking to a caller who said oh you know, I hate them, I hate all these yeah all these packies right in this country.
Speaker 2:He's like well, why do you hate them? He's like, um, they smell, yeah. And he says what do they smell of? So curry, yeah, he said do you like curry?
Speaker 9:he went yeah, I did, and then the conversation didn't go anywhere.
Speaker 2:So it's, uh, something as relevant today, unfortunately, but I think the differences today are back in the early 2000s. I think all of this racism that happened in school, and let's call it what it is it was objectively very racist, but I remember like even as a kid in the early 2000s, just starting in secondary school, people would be like, oh, it's just a bit of banter yeah, yeah, just a bit of racial banter, it's all good and crazy. Things just happened at my school, like we used to do a thing called whites v asians.
Speaker 2:Yeah so it's like, like for some reason this became like a yearly event yeah, yeah where all the white kids versus all the and we didn't have enough asians for like a pure team so there would be like anyone with any malady being on that team and it would be a big football match yeah, yeah and it was a weird thing because teachers would watch, the students would watch, and it only stopped when people made a facebook group, right about it, all right.
Speaker 2:And then I think parents found out and then they were worried it was going to be like a new story. So they're like we can't call it that yeah so then, I think they changed it to like england versus the world, which is only slightly better so because then you know the implication we're not british well, exactly, and that reminds me of a little bit of soccer aid.
Speaker 15:When sometimes they do england versus the world, they put anyone that's like got, like a parent it might be foreign in the rest of the world.
Speaker 15:Um, yeah, it's a good point though, because, um, that's how it manifested for me was being in that school trying to fit in. What I ended up doing was basically becoming a parody of myself in the sense where I would make jokes about my religion, my culture, and people would laugh, and that laughter would make me feel like, oh, I'm like part of the group now and I I remember in my secondary school I won funniest person in the year in the yearbook, um, and a lot of that was because I was just like willing to make racist jokes about myself that I thought were like, that I thought would enamor me to my peers. So, like I remember one specific occasion where there was a loud pop in the in the hallway, um, and, and I just I made the joke like, oh, that's sorry, that was my bad kind of thing, right, um, and I look back at myself and I just think like I'm just so not proud of like all of that stuff.
Speaker 15:You were a kid, definitely, but also like it also makes me realize how vulnerable I felt in that environment and why having really positive role models is just so important in whatever career you're in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, absolutely. And when? When did it change for you? Because you mentioned, you started reading. You saw the movie Ali and you read, you read the book and you found out about Malcolm X. Was that towards the end of schooling or starting at university?
Speaker 15:Around 14, 15, 16, that started changing and a few things happened. One was when friends would come around to my house. I'd say to my mum, like oh, can you not make like you know, like… Salad.
Speaker 15:Yeah, don't make salad and pakora, like just make like sandwiches and put like yeah, don't make salad. And pakora, like just make like sandwiches and put like sheets of like meat in there. Do you know what I mean? Like just very basic food, because I don't want them to think I'm weird. And what ended up happening is French side come to my house and started going where's the samosa, where's the pakora? Like that's what we want to eat. And they like loved my culture and that's what made me realize like I'm so embarrassed about my culture but like other people actually really love my culture that aren't even part of it, and so that's when it's really started ticking.
Speaker 2:But I still was a little bit unsure we often get this question at kestrel, which is why do we avoid interest? Why is interest so bad for muslims? We get it from a lot of muslims, but also a lot of non-muslims who are just like okay, well, why do you guys do that?
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, right, and you know one answer you can often give is well, because Allah said so in the Quran. Allah literally wages war on people who engage in interest. It's one of the sins you know we talk about. You know avoiding alcohol and not eating pork, but this is way up above that right. It's almost in the same boat. There's a major sin. It's a major, major sin, right? But we often don't categorize it as that because it's almost, I guess, invisible, right. You often don't understand or fully know when you're engaging in it but is that?
Speaker 10:answer sufficient. I don't think it's efficient to the inquiring mind. I do think it has weight, of course, as a muslim. But I think to answer this question we sort of need to take a step back and ask potentially a harder one what is riba? What is?
Speaker 10:it. I like to look at things linguistically. There are many angles you can answer this question with, but linguistically riba, the trilateral root of the word, is zara, ba and waw. Right Together they can formulate different meanings, but when strung together in that way, when it means riba, the, the meaning is essentially increase, growth, overpowerment, overshadowing things to do with growth and increase, and not necessarily all wholesome types of growth. Um, very interestingly on a side point here, the word for profit is rib, so the trident for of that is ra, ba and ha. And profit obviously in some sense is also a type of growth, but it's about what type of growth it is, and the difference between interest on the one hand and profit on the other is that riba and rib is that riba is an unproductive, you could even say a cancerous type of growth, whereas profit is a permissible and ordained and a real asset-backed type of growth.
Speaker 2:So the idea is that riba is is detrimental to society.
Speaker 10:And when you say growth, growth can be productive or it could be like a cancerous growth like a tumor yeah, whereas profit is beneficial to society yeah, yeah, and it's generated in a way that actually involves really economic activity. So I know that you were talking earlier about people's issues with the conventional and islamic looking is quite similar in terms of home purchase plans and others. Yeah, because one is called interest and one is called profit. Those words, yes, are used, but you have to ask yourself does two things having the same outcome make them the same? And the answer is no. You have to look at the process as well.
Speaker 10:The outcome is important, in a sense, because you have to look at why you're doing it, but undeniably, the structure of something is important. So you know, let's, let's look at it more specifically. Interest is the return on the extension of credit, so the return on money, whereas profit is the return on the sale of an asset. In both cases, I'm getting something additional, clearly, and I'm making money. I'm making a return of some sort, but the mechanism by which I did that is entirely different between me giving you a loan and asking for more back and me sending you some dates at a profit, and me sending you some dates at a profit. So outcomes are not the only aspect when it comes to Islamic finance, when it comes to looking at things in general, I think, even just in terms of the way you view the world, there's more to something than appearance. But you're going back to so what is it about?
Speaker 2:So that's the linguistic aspect to it, which is, by the way, let's not just glance over that. What subhanallah, what an amazing language arabic is yeah that like just how poetic it is that riba. And was it riba riba? My arabic's not the best, but I'm starting classes quite soon. Um that, they're so close and yet so far apart yeah, it's interesting that one.
Speaker 10:I do think that actually might be a coincidence in terms of the um, because the try this word, the letters are different but um, but yeah, it is quite a remarkable, uh, similarity, but there is. There is actually an ayah where very rhetorically, very poetically, that difference is conveyed. I believe it's. The verse goes like this A'udhu Billahi Minash Shaitanir Rajeem. So Allah has outlawed riba, but made Beneficial or increased Sadaqah charity. Now the word riba, you would have identified there as used. But made beneficial or increased charity, now the word riba, you would have identified there as used.
Speaker 10:What you might not realize is that the very next word, yurbi, the verb, guess what root that comes from the same from which riba comes from. But the difference is that that's talking about sadaqah on the one hand, whereas the first part is talking about riba. But what's the translation? Allah has outlawed riba comes from, but that the difference is that that's talking about sadaqah on the one hand, whereas the first part is talking about riba. So what's the translation? Allah's outlawed riba, but like increased or made beneficial sadaqah, but the increase, but the yurbi yurbi, yeah, yurbi is is the same, is using the same roots as the word riba.
Speaker 10:Isn't that interesting like, because of course, we always associate riba with it goes back to what you say riba technically means growth, linguistically yeah, yeah, but there's a difference between the linguistic meaning of something and the technical meaning. Sure, but let's go back to your question then. That's just one answer to what is riba Just going?
Speaker 2:back just straight to the question what is ribBA?
Speaker 10:RIBA is the unwarranted increase on a loan is what I would say, and its effect is unjust enrichment.
Speaker 5:I miss the weather and I just really struggle to settle in into this completely new place. And I understand oh okay, I shouldn't say understandably, but I was bullied a lot as a kid. Why did you say understandably?
Speaker 9:I should have said that. Okay, I should have said that that was really bad.
Speaker 5:But okay, let me put it this way. I actually, going back, I actually empathize with the kids who bullied me, which is such a lucky that this is okay. This is gonna sound really odd, okay, let me put it. Let me put it this way. Maybe I've empathized too much, but if I put myself in the shoes of those kids, okay, looking at me as this eight-year-old kid who just came from india fresh off the boat, I get why they bullied me. Yeah, I don't condone bullying. No one should bully. But let me give you a very quick anecdote.
Speaker 5:Okay, so early days, um, I just walked in and the first, like these kids, rushed to me on the playground. I'm the new kid, they want to get to know me. And they asked me who do you support? Okay, yeah, fair question. And me as a young eight-year-old kid fresh off the boat. I had no idea what that question was, never heard it in my life. Yeah, I grew up in kerala, south india. We support one team, that's the indian national team. Uh, so at the time I got really confused. I really panicked because this group of kids fresh in the playground.
Speaker 5:I really really thought hard and I said tony blair and you can imagine you can imagine the level of bullying, oh my god, that I got from that day onwards, and that was just one of many, many stories which led to why I empathize with my bullies.
Speaker 2:Um, even though bullying is wrong and no one should do it okay, well, it's good to come to terms with yes situation, but yeah, I don't know if I would empathize um, okay, yeah, they were looking for a man, united or city.
Speaker 5:Um, unfortunately not the answer. I gave plenty of kids in india.
Speaker 2:Support man united.
Speaker 5:They do now although back then football wasn't as big. Okay, um yeah, but especially not club football.
Speaker 2:But yeah, fine, fine, fine yeah, so you were bullied, you deserved it. Yeah, all of that. I retract that statement. But, yes, and and then you came through. But I kind of understand why you, if it was quite difficult for you growing up, especially through school, that you felt like I think this could be done better. Yes, was that kind of the story there?
Speaker 5:For so many reasons. I mean I went into one reason, which is the whole skills issue. The other issue is the social mobility issue. So the data shows that for every year of schooling that a kid goes through in the United Kingdom, the attainment gap between underprivileged kids and their peers widens, which is the exact opposite of what education should be doing.
Speaker 5:What the attainment gap widens Exactly why? So if you take two five-year-olds who are performing at the same level one from a working class background, one from a privileged background by the time they get to the age of 15 and they're doing their gcses, there will be the difference, even though they started at the exact same level, will be much wider after they've gone through 10 years of the education system is it just because of differences in school differences, and I don't know?
Speaker 5:even if you control for multiple factors yeah, like schooling and even if you take samples of people who actually maybe got a scholarship and went to private school, regardless, the system is set up in such a way that they will be wider apart than when they started but what metric?
Speaker 2:by like university they go to, but final salary grades?
Speaker 5:yeah, and we can. We can also look at the salary data and we see the exact same pattern. Why? The reality is that social mobility is very complex. There are so many factors at play and education is one of them, but equally the environment at home, the opportunities you have outside of school, the exposure you have in terms of your community and people around you. They all add up and right now, frankly, it's set up in a way that the system is not fair and it gets unfair as you go along.
Speaker 2:Do you think it's like perceived prospects? Like you know, you grow up in an area. You see your parents doing something, your siblings doing something, that's, and you just think that's probably the life I'm going to.
Speaker 5:I believe that's certainly a big factor and, to come back to kind of nia and kestrel, that's one of the big reasons why I do what I do, because I really believe that we as a muslim community have a lot of perceptions that are frankly problematic and holding us back, and there are many, many of those, some of which we can go into today, that I really hope we can change.
Speaker 17:Doing what we're doing, I mean I've been on the front page of the daily mail. You know I did that famous women's hour.
Speaker 2:I was going to ask you about that, because that was the first time I heard about you actually was because that in itself became a news story. So for people who do not know, uh zara appeared on women's hour, I think in the first week. That day you were elected day four and I think they lured you in saying it was going to be a very nice soft interview yeah, um, and you know women's hour continues to this day, but I think it was.
Speaker 2:Was it emma barnett who interviewed you, and then the first question out the gates was um, how many female moms are? Yeah, yeah, I was just sitting.
Speaker 17:there was just sitting there, I mean obviously before me there was this like lady on and some lovely story and she was super nice to her.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 17:And then with me, like the tone changed and obviously we're in a Zoom room, so there's other people there and they're all just kind of like looking a bit.
Speaker 2:Oh, it wasn't in person.
Speaker 17:No, no, no, of course or we were maybe I think we were in lockdown actually. So, anyway, she starts building this question up and I'm like, okay, something's like really off here, and then she goes. So your organization claims it's for women, include whatever it is. Yeah, but can you tell me and I'm just like I was like looking at my faq bank of like what, where is this? Is this something people are talking about? But it was a complete kind of setup you did really well.
Speaker 2:Did you go in with all the media training beforehand? I mean, I didn't think I was gonna get elected.
Speaker 17:So you know also it. Honestly, I didn't think it was that big a story I think, I'd break the news and it was so huge. You know, when I went on I just thought it was gonna be like a nice women's hour. Yeah. It shouldn't be like a. It wasn't like. It was a response to a big political story. It was me getting elected. That's the story.
Speaker 2:But yeah, you became the story.
Speaker 17:Yeah, but she or this show was really premised around taking the story away from that to something about making us archaic, and it was just a preposterous thing. So the reason that I was calm was I asked myself a really important question which I think we always have to ask ourselves in positions of leadership. In this moment, how do I want to be defined Right? Do I want to be angry, defensive Muslim? No, the people who elected me deserve better than that. I'm going to respond with dignity, because this isn't the moment I want my tenure and leadership to be remembered by. It needs to be beyond that. So I played it cool.
Speaker 17:I think it's annoyed her even more, but afterwards it was a massive backlash I had an open letter and my face was on the front page of the Guardian print edition and I became really famous, you know, but it was a. They call it baptism of fire. And I became really famous, you know, but it was a. They call it baptism of fire Because that whole week. I did so many tough interviews. Yes, that one, but I just said at the end of that week like stop, I didn't get elected for this.
Speaker 2:Oh, you told your media team like, let's not take any more, it was a media circus and it was all about they were framing me.
Speaker 17:I wasn't. I didn't even have a narrative, I hadn't even thought about what I was going to do so?
Speaker 2:were there other interviews of that ilk where people were like, oh okay, look, this woman is now leading a Muslim organisation. Look how backwards this religion is.
Speaker 17:So we had. I mean, there was a commentator from a certain right-wing publication that said I was a pleasant face away from a bearded, cross-eyed man, and I quote Really, they said I was a puppet and a token. Yeah, you can Google it. I was google it. There was a puppet and a token and that, um, you know, I was just, you know, put in. I was just like a face to something, but really I was being controlled it was all of that, and I had some tough interviews where asked about grooming gangs and terror all the usual tropes, um and really difficult.
Speaker 17:I think a lot of people just couldn't process that imams and mosques elected me yeah that you've been elected, majority that was elected officially and it was a democratic process.
Speaker 2:I think that just kind of blew them away at the time of recording, there's been a lot of societal unrest around immigrants and immigration and, beyond that, integration by immigrant communities has that affected your. What are people on the ground saying? What are your customers saying around this? Because it's weird to think that not two weeks ago, you know, I was telling my wife and my mom and other people don't leave the house because there are crazy people outside who might just attack you for being a brown person.
Speaker 7:No, like I had a guy grab my arm and say, go back to where you came from. Really yeah.
Speaker 7:And I was like I'm from California, okay, fine, I guess, if you want me to. I mean racism, unfortunately, is baked into British society, I hate to say it, systemically, given the history of imperialism of where we live. It's been a really strange, weird few weeks. I remember two weeks ago I was on the phone the whole morning. I just cleared my calendar and was calling we have a lot of organizations that work with immigrants or migrants or refugees and calling individuals up and just saying like hey, there's these planned riots or protests near you, please do not engage with it, please stay home. Like and I know people had very differing views about whether to go and meet them or not and counter protest, whatever.
Speaker 7:Um, I was very heartened to see a lot of white britons rise to the occasion, and that was incredible. What happened in walthamstow was that was beautiful and I think that is more indicative of of where we are as british society. But you know, it really broke my heart calling up one of the founders of this Filipino nursing community and I was worried, sick, because some of the rioters were throwing rocks little rocks at Filipino nurses that were going into the hospital in Sunderland to cover an emergency shift, like you're throwing rocks at nurses.
Speaker 7:Are you what? And I think it's so frustrating to have to constantly justify our existence. And a friend of mine who's British Nigerian, she was kind of saying we need to get rid of this rhetoric that you know we're so philanthropic, we give back so much to our community, we've built a community center, whatever. No, no, we, we deserve respect for simply existing, for living. But the truth of the matter is, of course, that we know that immigrants contribute so much to this country, to europe.
Speaker 7:We are the ones driving your buses, we're the ones cleaning your offices, we're the ones that are tending to you in a and e I mean I was in a and e recently right and every single doctor and nurse and health practitioner from like first intake to phlebotomy and onwards was an immigrant right, so the nhs does run on melanin so at this point is it? It's what frustrates me most is how anyone, as I'm raising the seed round, can see this behavior and the political rhetoric across Europe and then say, to my face, we don't see the need for something like Bloom.
Speaker 2:The crisis in the Middle East, the crisis in Gaza, begins. Many of us have many businesses start to adopt a practice of boycotting and meaningfully moving away from certain brands who have allied themselves with Israel. One of those brands is Coca-Cola. So you decided you were only going to stock Salam Cola, which specifically donates, I think, 10% of its revenues to people around the world, including those in Palestine. Now people discovered this, and what happened then?
Speaker 16:I remember I was still at the restaurant at the time and we started because we monitor, like our performance quite closely. Initially we just got like a one-star review with no comments and just thought that's odd because we investigate as well if something's going wrong.
Speaker 16:We want to understand yeah, what's happening, what's happened and how do you prevent this from happening? And that's what we did, uh, and like we're not getting like any customer that, like we're like we're asking stuff, like no one could remember this kind of customer or delivery through those names, and then we just got, we started getting a couple more and it was it because some of the accounts were like they were reviewing the same restaurants so you could you notice that some of that there's a pattern.
Speaker 16:There's a pattern, and then we got one that kind of confirmed what it was, which is a review which took a screenshot of our menu on Uber Eats and specifically referring to Salam Cola. I don't want any. What was it? The food industry should not be involved in politics. Right.
Speaker 16:And pretty clear that they were targeting us for Salaam Kola Right. Initially it sucked Like. Initially we thought, okay, we work hard for our views. We don't want this to happen. What can we do? Right For me, I was shocked Like you're trying to target a restaurant in Tahamlets which was predominantly one of the probably one of the most pro-Palestinian boroughs in London.
Speaker 2:You see flags everywhere you see graffiti, all kinds of support, exactly exactly and you're trying to target us.
Speaker 16:Really. That's when we put out a tweet just asking for, like the we worked hard on community, building community and uh, and the uh, the community kind of supported us back. I remember we just put it out that we're just getting, we're starting to get review bomb by people who didn't like our pro palestinian stance. Yeah, we started getting. We like, within the first 12 hours, we started getting over like 205 star reviews. Wow, uh, supporting us and uh, community really backed us. Then the thing for me started becoming like, especially like I was so shocked uh, trying to target us. It was like, actually, we should flip this around and it should. We should be about us sending a message that we're on, we're unapologetic about this, and it's one of the messages, especially when I think about it later on Actually, let's get to that later on. But yeah, we thought we need to come up with our own response.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 16:And that's when we decided Alhamdulillah, we managed to turn around the whole campaign within four days. Where we created this campaign, we launched this brand new burger and we decided we partnered with Muslim Aid To donate all the profits for it. For a week, we also partnered with Salam Cola. They gave us a brand, they supported us, gave us loads of cola and their water, and we started giving those out, so like if you're going to target us for it we're going to partner.
Speaker 16:we're going to join together and we're starting a solidarity for Muslim businesses as well, putting it out there and yeah, we managed to turn around this campaign within a couple of days, ran it for a week, raised over 4,000, alhamdulillah for Muslim Aid. That was our way to send a statement, right.
Speaker 2:Look very firmly. We are taking a stand, yeah, and you can't bully us. You can't bully us.
Speaker 16:That was the thing you can't bully us, and I think that's very important to understand. I think especially when sometimes we feel intimidated very quickly, right as Muslims.
Speaker 2:You've been on both sides of the table, you've been the plucky founder, you know, and you took that all the way your company to exit first time anyone's ever called me plucky.
Speaker 11:Uh, when I think of plucky, I think of like, you know, like a children's cartoon character like scrappy do or something. No like, yeah, plucky, I'm plucky the chicken.
Speaker 2:Or maybe that is the kids version of kestrel maybe have we just no, no, definitely not but my point is you've been on the founder side, yes, and then you've also been on the vc side that is true what was harder and what did you enjoy more?
Speaker 11:oh good, god, that's like asking, uh, uh, asking somebody which is their favorite child. Um, they're different things and different experiences. I would be. I wouldn't be the investor, accelerator person that I am today without the entrepreneurial experience. And but that said, could I go through the entrepreneurial experience now in the same way with two decades of work experience? Absolutely not. I don't think I'd be anywhere near as good a founder. Is the honest answer really yeah, because I think for me, as you get older, you know I recently lost a really close family, the first family member of my life that was actually. I actually like was devastated over.
Speaker 11:It's a bit of an awakeningiva nilalaiva, roger, I'm sorry to. It's a bit of an awakening. It's like what really matters, because we all forget how short this one precious life is. And to the 21 year olds and 22 year olds who think they're going to live forever I did that too, and you're always like oh no, they're not like me, no, we all were. And here's the thing it's like you have one precious life. You can choose to use it and direct it in ways of your choosing. That is one of the greatest gifts we have, particularly those living here in the UK. We have optionality, we have choice by and large most of us and the decision to become a founder.
Speaker 11:It's not a job People falsely think. Oh, because it's your professional thing, it's a. It's not. You bleed green, am I wrong? No for sure, it's almost like a calling. It is, and that's the thing. Unless you feel it as a calling, the problem you're solving is generally what you've always wanted to do, or something that you would do, even if the money wasn't great or not there. I mean, that's what you did for three years.
Speaker 2:It's a weird thing where suddenly you feel like everything in your life had led up to that point, like Allah had led you to this and taken you through all those opportunities. And you got into this university and you'd gone to this career and didn't really know why you were in financial services and working for this client or this bank. Suddenly it all makes sense, it all just falls together and I think a lot of people spend their lives looking for that. You know what, why they're, why they're doing that and most people don't find it to really look at going back to the idea of unlocking your potential.
Speaker 2:yeah, look at the opportunities that are less provided to you, whether it's your education or where you are. Maybe you're working in a job that you didn't think was that useful, like you were in a bank and you were worried about Riba and all of that, but a lot of that could directly translate to something very entrepreneurial in the Islamic finance space. Would your advice just be to go and grab that opportunity, to go out there and do that?
Speaker 1:yeah, absolutely. I mean, I would caveat with this my background's risky. Yeah, yeah, I always say that, look, everyone's context isn't the same, sure, everyone's situation. And you, I would never advise someone to um, do something, uh that puts them at risk, like you know. Uh, in terms of if they've got families, etc. You know losing that right, you know it's got to be measured, you've got to understand risk, but do it as in like, be entrepreneurial. You know, go out and like, even if you're doing a side gig, if you're working in a job, think about doing something on the side. Look at the skills that you need. A lot of people just want to do business, but they don't invest in themselves. The greatest investment you can do is in yourself yeah
Speaker 1:you know you want to go into business, but you don't understand how to read financial accounts. Right, look at that. Understand taxation. That's very true, you know so. So do these things that upskill you. You know, like, like I said, I was building a car for a road that hadn't yet been built for anyone who's young. Think about developing yourself so that, when an opportunity arises, you're able to take advantage of it. Number one is in terms of yourself. Number two learn to save money. Yeah, this is the boring thing, right, but you know, alhamdulillah, you guys got a fantastic tool. Learn to save money. We, like you know we live in a time and a society that you know, we just hand to mouth. You buy. We're so materialistic, we want to spend our money as soon as we get it. We don't have good habits of saving compared to like our parents right, you know they wouldn't buy something unless they had the money for an advance. We're happy to get things on credit, even if we earn money bang, it's gone.
Speaker 2:I now pay later is everywhere, exactly, whether it's plane tickets or food, yeah, even even like take Uber Eats I saw the other day. Why not pay later for that?
Speaker 9:That's incredibly dangerous, of course, it is Incredibly dangerous mindset for people to be falling into.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, just go into debt, absolutely so.
Speaker 1:Young people avoid definitely going into that. But learn to save your money. Yeah. Come up with a plan and so you know you're just preparing yourself for when an opportunity arises, you're ready to take it and again, like, make sure, again, you know, you do shura, you go to speak. Allah tells us in the Quran that if you don't know something, go to those people who know. Learn to ask people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think the biggest thing people are afraid of doing is asking for help these days. I don't know whether it's pride or fear or whatever gets in the way, but admitting that you're having these thoughts or you're worried about something that can be the hardest first step for people today. But so I look at social media these days I think we first met.
Speaker 2:I just dm'd you, yeah, yeah, I think it's like half my contacts um people who are like really good friends and advisors, today it's just like sometimes just cold outreach can can go a long way. It's, it's similarish with us, right, because kestrel, I don't know if you know the the story- behind.
Speaker 6:I know it's a bird. It's a bird.
Speaker 2:That's as far as I know but similarly we had a different name and I don't know the name.
Speaker 2:It was like ethepay or something. It's really bad. No, it's really bad. We user tested it sounded like dog food, but it also wasn't available anyway. So then we went with kestrel. I would never recommend going with the name of an animal because it's almost never available, trademark wise or domain wise. So we knocked some vowels out of it became k-e-s-t-r-l. Um. And why we came up with that? Partly it was because it was just my favorite bird.
Speaker 2:You're a bird watcher or something I'm really into animals and wildlife but also there was this. I've not mentioned this part before. There was this children's series and book series I used to love when I was like four or five years old, called Animals of Farthing Wood and one of the birds, which is about all these animals who are escaping this wood and this forest.
Speaker 2:I know it's not the war and peace on financial services and all of that that you usually read, but it's about this group of animals. Their forest is getting destroyed and they have to escape the forest to go find the fabled land which is where they're trying to head to. And they have to navigate, going through developments and cities and motorways. And of these animals, one of them is a kestrel, but also kestrel I was hoping for this big, like this huge moment that happens and the kestrel saves everyone.
Speaker 2:It was my favorite. It was my favorite uh character in the thing.
Speaker 2:But also kestrels eat a lot of things, including starlings. So we were like we're gonna take on starling bank, so that's what it was, that's a cool name. But then retrospectively someone was like oh yeah, do you remember that movie and also that book, Kez or Kestrel for a Knave? What is that? Kestrel for a what, Kestrel for a Knave? It was this book that a lot of school kids in this country usually have to read, and there's also a movie called which is about this working class boy up north who finds a kestrel and trains it and he has this whole bond with this kestrel and it's this whole thing about. It's like this larger narrative around the schooling system in this country.
Speaker 2:It's like an education, yeah, sort of. But the idea of where it comes from is that there was like this old book of falconry in this country and I don't know why I'm spending podcast time talking about this, but it's all right.
Speaker 2:Some people might want to know, but there was this old book of falconry which used to denote what birds go to what social class of person. So like an emperor would have an eagle, or a king would use a falcon, or like a peregrine falcon or something like that and a knave, or like the poorest of people would use a kestrel. Because a kestrel is a tiny little falcon. It can't catch anything bigger than a sparrow or a mouse or anything like that. But the idea is that the kestrel is kind of like democratizing finance because it can be used by anyone. So you know it goes full circle that way, but that doesn't come off very well, branding wise. So. So what's the story you tell people we want to take out starling bank so that's what we say so.
Speaker 2:You know they've not said anything to us yet, but who knows if they listen to this. Thank you for listening to the muslim money talk podcast. If you like what you heard, then please subscribe to muslim money talk. Wherever you might have been listening to this, give us a like and share it with someone who you think might be interested. It really really helps us out. Thank you, assalamualaikum, and see you next time.